SWIHA Blog

Alexis Holland (who also goes by her soul name Wayah) is a soul that’s wise beyond her years. As a graduate from SWIHA’s 800 hour Yoga Teacher Training, Life Coaching and Polarity programs, she recently launched herself (and her amazingly adorable coyote/husky pup Kiya!) on an adventerous sound–healing tour, bouncing around to various yoga studios throughout the Southwest, camping out wherever there were tall trees and a patch of Mama Earth to hold them both. In our interview, Alexis shared her journey pre- and- post SWIHA, what inspires her, and how she moved through things like fear, doubt and resistance while following her dreams.

Tell us a little bit about your journey to SWIHA. What led you here, and what did you end up graduating with?

Surprisingly enough, my journey to SWIHA began with love. An emmense love for myself, and a true love I stumbled upon along a cross country journey to discover who I really was, and who I was becoming. My interest for the healing arts had been growing already for a long time. I was blessed with these brilliant seeds of knowledge at a very young age by people of all walks of life with one thread in common – freedom, health and art. As I began my ‘spirit walk’ of discovery, I found myself in the depths of the playa in Black Rock City, Neveda at a celebration for the freedom of expression known as ‘Burning Man.’ It was there that I met a man that changed my life in the way that I view love and passion today. He told me all about his experience with SWIHA, and I was hooked. A place where I could learn everything that I could possibly dream of doing? SOLD. Sitting in a parking lot in Santa Cruz, CA, I made the decision and I began driving to Phoenix, AZ for a new life, a new beginning, and a risk I was willing to take.

Dear One, are you like me? Do you sometimes get stuck creatively? Although these blocks can be crippling, fear not! We (you and I) are going to get through this, and here’s how:

1. Try to figure out what’s stoppin’ you

At the core of creative blocks of any kind, I usually find some kind of deeply rooted belief that we don’t deserve to create the life we desire. Somehow a crazy, non-serving thought slips into our head that we’re not good enough, smart enough, driven enough, talented enough, gifted enough. The list goes on. Personally speaking, I’ve struggled with this a lot in the past, whether it was my fear of not being a good enough writer/singer/musician/artist . . . you name it, just fill in the blank ____________! What have you not felt ‘good enough’ about?

The fear of failure (and of greatness) lurks perpetually around the corner, waiting for us to confront it, for us to tell it off, for us to own up to the fact that, YES, we do deserve to be the creators of our destiny! Many times we simply need to acknowledge our fears and recognize that being afraid is perfectly normal. Instead of viewing fear as some big scary monster, one strategy is to befriend our fears, or at least persist on in spite of their existence!

Laura Moore, owner of LaTouch Wellness, is a highly-seasoned and equally high-spirited practitioner who began her massage therapist practice in Michigan over 15 years ago, where she worked in spa settings and the local YMCA. One of her most memorable experiences was working at Ora Oxygen Spa, located inside the Detroit Metropolitan International Airport, was where she offered massage therapy, manicure and pedicure services to travelers. Laura expresses her gratitude for this specific experience, as she really enjoyed meeting people from all around the world, and having the opportunity to witness the similarities in all of us. Honored to have her as one of SWIHA’s #GreatGraduates, Laura shares that her continued education with SWIHA has “offered a different approach to my healing practice”.

Upon relocating to Arizona, she discovered SWIHA and occasionally attended the monthly “Gifts & Graces” event, where SWIHA opens their doors to the public and features guest speakers with powerful messages, in addition to complimentary sessions to those attending, including Toe Reading, Life Coaching, Energywork and more. Laura always appreciated the motivational aspect of the first Friday night events, however, she didn’t quite anticipate becoming a student. Laura shares:

By KC Miller, SWIHA Success Center Blogger

Every one of us has a critic or two in our lives. They may be close friends, family members or the casual unconscious, cavalier, would-be-comic that offers up a caustic comment that momentarily cremates our self-esteem. Imagine considering the critics in your life as ‘Messengers of Courage,’ because to face whatever comment or criticism they toss out takes courage on your part. Facing whatever expression of disapproval or perceived fault someone else has of you is an opportunity for you to do a moral inventory of who you really are, where you stand in the world, and exactly what the truth is about yourself!

One of my biggest moments of courage in facing a critic happened a few years ago during a Celebrate Your Life event in Scottsdale, Arizona. For years, Mishka Productions, created by Ariel Wolfe and her daughter Liz Dawn, have been bringing best-selling authors and new-age thought leaders together for a weekend of intense spiritual growth. It has been my honor to be a part of the conference from almost the beginning, partly because long before the Celebrate Your Life events began, I was friends with Ariel Wolfe.

It was at these amazing conferences that my soul work, Toe Reading, really found a life of its own. From the first time Toe Readings were offered to conference participants, long lines of people would form just to have a piece of their life path analyzed and honored. The messages stored in the tissue of their toes proved to be extremely accurate and divinely guided messages were offered to the conference seekers. Hundreds of people received deep transformative information about themselves and their soul-path, creating tremendous healing and release from past pain from the Toe Readings they received. These readings are based on a soul coaching system I was able to teach a whole team of Spirit-directed practitioners.

Knowing what one wants to do in life is half the battle in getting where one wants to be. However, motivating one’s self to become it and inspiring one’s self to continuously do it on a consistent basis takes the other 50%.

Each and every one of us has a story to our lives. If I may share mine with you it would go something like this. As a young child, I always knew that I had a special connection with people and the ability to feel their inner emotions. Call it a sixth sense, a heavy dosage of intuition or a true awakening to what is real, but whatever it was I definitely felt different than others around me. My principals and teachers from my elementary, junior high and high schools must have sensed this in me because I was always the one chosen to tour the new incoming students around and help them become less nervous and feel more comfortable to their new surroundings. My parents also took notice because they would always see me talking to complete strangers and convinced me to stop this behavior because they had the inclination that these people weren’t worthy of being acknowledged or talked too. As the years rolled on and the more my parents told me to stay focused and become an educated person with a solid career with tons of money, the more I noticed that I was plugged into society’s normalcy of what we should do rather than what we were born to do. So year after year, I ignored my tremendous gifts with people and ran around the hamster-wheel doing what everyone else was doing in life, while missing the big picture to my true joy, peace and happiness I felt inside.

Aandra Bohlen is a tough, yet tender, six-figure entrepreneur, business consultant and certified empowerment coach whose straightforward approach to personal and professional growth has launched her into her passion and purpose. Dedicated to helping business owners cultivate grit, clarify their ideas and bust limiting beliefs, Aandra is now serving hundreds of entrepreneurs in a loving and profitable way, while acknowledging SWIHA as one of the many experiences that helped her get where she is today.

Always having had a no-nonsense approach to her own endeavors, Aandra found herself easily coaching others through questions they had about their paths – be it personal or professional. Knowing that this was her calling, Aandra launched her coaching business in June 2008. She found herself effortlessly researching and sharing relevant and timeless strategies with others to help them grow their own businesses. Aandra’s coaching business encompasses marketing, self-promotion, creative selling and strategic positioning – whatever she feels is most beneficial to helping the entrepreneurs she was working with take their businesses to a new level.

As a recent or former graduate of SWIHA, I’m sure you can attest to the growing pains you’ve experienced upon leaving school, suddenly tasked with building your own business or practice from the ground up. Of course, you have all of your accumulated wisdom, teachings, experiences, healings, lessons, trials and tribulations to lean on from your time at SWIHA. So what do you do when you get stuck, unmotivated, or caught up in fear and doubt around moving forward? When you hit those imaginary, yet oh-so-real walls? When you just want to give up your path, lay in bed and just binge watch Netflix until your next incarnation (isn’t that how Buddha did it)?

The mind can create a million different ways in which you can fail. We’ve all been there, and some of you might be in that space currently. If you’re not, read on, as I’m sure you’ll gain something from this article. Wherever you’re at, love it, since if you’re feeling it, you’re healing it! This week, I wanted to focus on the importance of balancing and clearing our chakras, and how each chakra blockage corresponds to a certain set of emotions, physical pains and states of dis-ease. I’m sure some of you have seen this information before, so treat this as a refresher if that’s the case. By slowing down, and becoming aware of where we are experiencing certain pains or emotions in our physical and energetic body, we can accept them, work with them, and ultimately heal, moving through whatever so called wall, stuck-ness or resistance we were dancing with before!

Laurel Hernandez definitely had a heroic journey in terms of her path to the Southwest Institute of Healing Arts (SWIHA). In 2005, she spent six months on pain meds and in a back brace after a quad accident. What she didn’t realize is that her life was about to take a 180 degree turn. Laurel recalled how her incredible and arduous path all began: “I had back surgery for a fracture that didn't heal, got a divorce after 25 years, left a great job of 19 years, moved to a new state leaving family and friends behind, went back to school for a career that didn't suite me, became a caregiver for my parents before they both passed, and I had lived in a ten mile radius of where I was born for the past 50 years!” All of this left her feeling lost and hopeless. Yet deep down, she knew that healing from within was what was really needed.

They say that Spirit works in mysterious ways, and it wasn’t until Laurel had a channeled session from a friend that her journey to Spirit, and to SWIHA, truly began. The week after her mother transitioned, her mother’s spirit came through to her in a channeled session, guiding Laurel to forgive herself, and let go of her past so as to be healed. More specifically, her mother urged her to look into Life Coaching -- something Laurel had never considered before.

Written by StevieAnne Petitt

In 2012, Christa Rimmer was desperately searching for something, but she couldn’t quite grasp what she was missing or searching for. In a state of curiosity and courage, she ventured out on a series of first-time experiences, including a trip to Sedona, diving into the practice of meditation, and sessions with both a psychic and a hypnotherapist for a past-life regression. She felt restless in wanting to know everything and to truly find what resonated with her. She claims that she felt awakened, but lost, for nearly two months following these new events. As she was finishing up her bachelor's degree in Psychology at ASU, she quickly became disenchanted with the idea of continuing on. Christa jokingly shared that in hindsight, she knew she was onto a new path when she excitedly mistook her curriculum’s Astronomy class for Astrology.

As a yoga teacher, part of my preparation for each class is to come up with a focus or intention for the practice. This is typically offered through some sort of inspirational reading or compelling offering. My inspiration for the intention or focus for my classes is usually around something that I am currently working on in my life.

I figure, how can I ask my students to work on something if I am not working on it myself?

In the past, I tried surfing the net to find things to inspire me and was not having great success. So I started to search for inspirational quotes to use as my muse. This has proven to be very successful in putting together an offering for my yoga classes. The quotes and readings I use to open my yoga or meditation sessions are becoming so effective that students come up to me after class and ask for a copy of my offering. In fact, this happened recently as I facilitated a guided mediation for my fellow co -workers.

The guided meditation was inspired by a quote that I came across by Nick Vujicik, an Australian Christian evangelist and motivational speaker born with tetra-amelia syndrome, a rare disorder characterized by the absence of all four limbs.